Subdued Chaos

A two-piece from Portland annihilates audiences with classical strings and strange analog sounds.

Kevin O’Connor sits alone in a park in Dallas, Texas.
Around him scream the sirens of police cars and fire trucks racing by.
But he just continues chatting casually — immune to the chaos — over the
phone about the show he and viola player Lisa Molinaro played last
night.

Last night he and Molinaro’s instrumental duo, known as
Talkdemonic, played in front of 3,000 people on a bill with Modest
Mouse. Weeks before that, they shared the bill with Modest Mouse and the
Flaming Lips.

“It’s great to play for 3,000 people when 2,999 of those
people don’t even know who we are,” O’Connor says. “We’re kinda weird.
We’re not your average band, and more often than not audiences look at
us like, ‘What the f--- is going on?’”

It’s because the band is impossible to qualify. In its
rawest form, Talkdemonic is a brooding hailstorm of classical strings
that get trampled and beaten to death by a thunderous drum kit. The
duo’s moody, primal music is the compilation of vintage analog sounds,
viola, drums, loops and synthesizers. All at once the music is ferocious
and passive-aggressive, calculated and flawed, simple yet chaotic.

“Basically we’re a violist and a drummer playing
psychedelic music with all sorts of crazy analog sounds and bass coming
out of the speakers,” O’Connor says.

The strange sounds come from O’Connor’s warbly Wurlitzers,
dusty Italian Crumar synths and vintage Rhodes pianos. The psychedelic
sounds come from a viola that sounds more like an electric guitar, and a
drum kit that likes to take a beating.

O’Connor looks like a blond tousled-hair Cabbage Patch
Doll. Molinaro looks like a gothic housewife from the 1950s. Years
before the two met, O’Connor was an English major at Washington State
University. While in school he dabbled with “’90s indie rock bands” and
went on to form Two Play Color — a band with University of Idaho student
Justin Ringle, now of Horse Feathers.

The band went their separate ways after graduation in
2000, and O’Connor moved to Portland to become a full-time musician. He
ended up becoming a substitute teacher and a one-man-show on the
weekends. That is, until he met Molinaro.

The duo formed in 2003 in Portland. Much like the
juxtaposition of Talkdemonic’s instruments, Molinaro and O’Cononor are
polar opposites. She’s a classically trained musician. He is
self-taught.

The duo recorded their first album Mutiny Sunshine, in 2004. The down-tempo beats and unusual instrumentation earned them Willamette Week’s “Best New Band” title in 2005. And by 2006, their sophomore album, Beat Romantic, received glowing reviews on Pitchfork.

Their latest album, Ruins, was released in October
on Modest Mouse front man Isaac Brock’s label, Glacial Pace Recordings.
MTV has already picked up Talkdemonic’s eerie music video “City Sleep.”
Despite maintaining the momentum of their previous records, the album is
a stark departure from the flawless and at times ethereal harmonies
that marked their past.

“Ruins is a lot darker and less folksy than our other
albums,” O’Connor says. “It kind of falls in line with the other drone
music out right now. It’s definitely more noisy and distorted. Lisa’s
viola is amped up and the drums are a little more freaky and random.

“We had no idea who was going to put it out or what we were going to do with it so we felt very free in making the album.”

O’Connor says their sound may have won over a few hearts
last night that would normally be devout Modest Mouse fans. Then again,
he says, maybe not.

Within minutes, the sound of sirens leaves and O’Connor
embraces the moment of silence. After eight years his band is finally
comfortable in their own skin — embracing the chaos that comes with
being a noisy instrumental band — and reveling in the silence of
maturity.

“I sorta feel like we’re in our second act as a band,”
O’Connor says. “It’s really nice not to be a new band any more. Now, we
are just ready to move forward and embrace the weirdness.”